Dog hit by vehicle leads to chase, four-car crash in New Haven

3 adults, baby taken to hospital

Published 12:43 pm, Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Three adults and one infant were sent to the hospital after a four-car crash Wednesday in New Haven.

Three adults and one infant were sent to the hospital after a four-car crash Wednesday in New Haven.

Photo: Kristin Stoller — New Haven Register

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Three adults and one infant were sent to the hospital after a four-car crash Wednesday in New Haven.

Three adults and one infant were sent to the hospital after a four-car crash Wednesday in New Haven.

Photo: Kristin Stoller — New Haven Register

Dog hit by vehicle leads to chase, four-car crash in New Haven

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NEW HAVEN >> A dog owner’s effort to find the motorist who hit his pet Wednesday wound up sending three adults and an infant to the hospital after a four-car crash.

The wreck occurred shortly before noon on Orchard Street near Goffe Street, as a man allegedly tried to chase down another driver who had hit his dog.

Sgt. Richard Miller said at the crash scene that a driver hit a dog then left the scene, prompting the dog’s owner to jump into his mother’s Infiniti and give chase.

As he tried to catch the vehicle, the man allegedly ran a red light at high speed and hit another vehicle at Orchard and Goffe streets. The car that was struck hit a third vehicle and that vehicle hit a parked car, police said.

“There was a big boom and everybody came out” to look, said Rhea Brown, who lives in an apartment at Orchard and Goffe streets.

Police spokesman Officer David Hartman said the infant and three adults were taken to the hospital, though the baby was not injured. He said the adults may have minor injuries.

Two heavily damaged vehicles were loaded onto tow trucks at the scene.

The infant who was involved in the crash was sitting in a person’s lap and was not secured in a car seat, Miller said. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, infants must ride in a rear-facing seat until they are 1 year old and 20 pounds, and children must ride in a child safety seat until they are over 6 years old and 60 pounds.

Failing to follow the child safety seat rules can result in a fine and an order to complete a car seat education class, according to the DMV website. Hartman said the woman who was holding the unrestrained child was ticketed, as was the dog’s owner.

While the infant in Wednesday’s crash wasn’t injured, some said the accident serves as a reminder for why the state’s child safety seat laws need to be followed.

Mark Cicero, a pediatric emergency physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital, said in an interview that having a child unrestrained in a vehicle creates at least three dangers.

First, a child who isn’t restrained could be ejected from a vehicle during a crash and they could become a projectile in the car, potentially posing a risk to themselves and others.

And he said that the airbags in the front seats of cars are perfectly placed to potentially cause head and neck injuries to young children during a collision. There is even greater risk of that happening today than there was when the original laws were made because most cars on the road today have an airbag system.

“There is absolutely no substitute for a proper restraint for a child,” Cicero said. “Parents shouldn’t do this even if it’s for a quick trip down to the store.”

She said that when someone is wearing a seat belt, it should be hitting the hard points on their body, like the shoulder and hip bones. When undersized children wear a seat belt, it won’t hit those points, potentially causing serious injuries, even if the child is restrained.

“It’s a long time, but kids need to be in a booster seat until they are at least seven years old and 60 pounds,” she said. “Seat belts are designed for fully grown adults. To guarantee that the safety belt will fit, they need to be of that size.”

The driver who allegedly hit the dog was not involved in the accident and had not been located by Wednesday afternoon. The dog ran into the road, Hartman said.

Connecticut state law requires any motorist who hits and injures a dog to stop and to report the injury. Violation of the law is an infraction.

The law says: “Any person who has knowledge of causing, by the operation of a motor vehicle, injury or death to a dog shall at once stop and render such assistance as may be possible, shall immediately report such injury or death to such dog’s owner or such owner’s representative and shall give his name, address and operator’s license and registration numbers to such owner or representative or any witness or peace officer. If unable to ascertain and locate such owner or representative, such operator shall, at once, report the injury or death to a police officer, constable, state police officer or inspector of motor vehicles, to whom he shall give the location of such accident and a description of the dog.”

The identities of those involved in the accident and specific charges weren’t immediately available.